Irish Travellers

[Susan Gilbert]

Yes, from what I understand , the Travellers from Murphy Village, SC do have a particular language. There was a Dateline NBC special about them a few years ago. Chilling and disturbing.
There are websites devoted to Traveller information. One in particular http://www.pitt.edu/~alkst3/USA.html seems to have been written by a Pitt colleague.
----- Original Message -----
From: Duane Campbell
Sent: Sunday, September 22, 2002 11:46 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Irish Travellers

The Toogood matter (video child beating) has me wondering. Do the Irish
Travelers (a widespread family similar, but not ethnically related to the
Rom) have their own dialect? This woman is from a clan based in Texas;
there is also a clan that works from Murphreesboro SC.

Her pronunciations do not say Texas to my ear. I hear pieces of several
things, but Northern rural, hill country, comes through. The grammar is
also interesting, with several variants that are new to me, e.g. not the
familiar "he done" but rather "he's did"? That's new to me except as an
occasional accident.

Has this group been studied?

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